


What is Love?

by breejah



Category: Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alien Biology, Alien Sex, Alien Technology, Alien/Human Relationships, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Hand Jobs, Hybrids, Immortality, Mating Rituals, Past Relationship(s), Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:21:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breejah/pseuds/breejah
Summary: Tommy has been told countless times by Mary Lou that she doesn't love him, but when faced with losing her to death, will he use his expertise in alien technology to save and bind her to him or let her go?Rated E; Alien Sex, Alien/Human DNA Experiments, Immortality.





	What is Love?

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [FWU_2019_Jan_New_Beginnings](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/FWU_2019_Jan_New_Beginnings) collection. 



> **Prompt:** Alien and human lovers, technology, de-aging process, immortal companions.

_ _

* * *

 

_ This is it,  _ he thought, staring up at the large multi-structured building, labeled ‘Shady Oaks Hospice Care’ along the side in red, dull lettering. Tugging the brim of his black fedora low against his brow, he grabbed the briefcase he’d briefly set down to study the sight before him and continued inside.

It was as he expected it to be - friendly, but lackluster, with the scent of death clinging to the recycled air for those prone to sensing such things. Immediately, it made him shudder, but he suppressed the sensation, heading for the desk. He sat down his briefcase again, nodding briefly at the nurse behind the desk, and asked for the room number he already knew by heart.

The nurse looked over her patient roster and nodded, pointing him to the elevators. He smiled, the act setting her at ease, and asked for the stairs instead. “For my heart,” he commented, tapping his wrist, where an Apple watch was anchored. Let her think it was for his cardiovascular goals, not what the person he had sought for the past decade knew it was for - that elevators frightened him and gave him terrible vertigo, even after all these years and all his metamorphosis into what he was now.

“Of course,” the nurse smiled, pointing him in the direction they were located, tucked behind an emergency exit. He smiled, signing his name on the guest list clipboard, then attached the visitor's badge to his blazer, picked up his briefcase, then headed where she told him that he’d find his patient, on the third floor, in room 305.

It didn’t take him long to climb the stairs, nor did it barely wind him. Ever since those white-smocked villains had all but stripped him of his self-worth and identity, he found himself changed. For years, he’d drank himself to oblivion, hoping to forget. He never got to go home, or aide it, hoping against hope that the music he made - a signal to them, his people, his family, his wife and children - got to them. For years, he was in despair and denial of what had happened, until about a decade ago when, suddenly, he’d received a message back. Now, fully forced to live as a human, as those experiments had ruined his eyes, ruined parts of his alien body that required him to use his technology and make himself more like one of  _ them,  _ still blessed - or cursed - with long life, given his physiology and his reaction to Earth’s atmosphere, he could do things others couldn’t. He’d contemplated simply killing himself, ending the pain, but when the message returned and told him they’d survived, escaped to a terraformed planet by another set of alien species they found that would aide them, but unable to journey and take him home, he had relaxed and found himself surprisingly uplifted and relieved.

Now, he had a sense of purpose, a sense of accomplishment, that everything he’d endured - even the betrayal of _her_ , of his friend and co-workers, the government who both feared and hated him - and he found himself able to move on, live amongst these strange and unusual people he now called his own. For how long that would be, he didn’t know. He still didn’t give up his reclusive habits, finding it hard to connect with anyone, which was why he was here.

Seeing the door that was etched with the markings 305, he slipped inside and closed the door behind him, studying the old, dry husk of a woman in front of him. Time had not been kind to her, even when she slept she looked tired and worn, ready to cast off the shell of her mortal coil and move on. He stared, feeling his throat tighten, and realized he didn’t want her to.

He missed her, terribly. It had taken him these past ten years to realize that. She often had said she didn’t love him, but he knew - as she did - that those words had been a lie.

_ Mary Lou, _ he thought, as he settled down in a white plastic chair beside her bed, staring at the beeping monitors at her side as his briefcase came to rest on the tops of his thighs. She was older than her years, her human body ravaged by alcohol in a way his body couldn’t be, and he winced at the surprise amount of guilt that flared up with the thought. He’d started this, with his need to absorb things to an extreme, almost an obsession, and her love blinded her to follow in his footsteps.

He wondered, idly, if she’d like him more now - mostly human, if ageless still, like that creature side of himself he’d once shown her and she reacted so badly to. Reaching forward, he took her hand, noting the paleness of her skin, the outline of blue veins underneath the bones of her fingers, making him swallow and struggle to find his voice before he finally spoke.

“It’s me,” he began, feeling her stir. He sat his briefcase aside and scooted closer, cupping her slackened hand in both of his - shocked at how cold she was. His temperature had barely registered human for years, something she’d used to tease him about when they were intimate, but now it was she who was cold. “I’ve come for you, Mary Lou. Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Suddenly, he felt her eyes on him, looking up just as her head turned. Her hair was long since grey, thinned wisps of cotton about her aged face. She didn’t smile as she stared at him, and he briefly panicked that her mind was gone - something he couldn’t repair - when she finally murmured his name. “Tommy.”

“Yes, it’s me,” he reassured her, offering her a faint smile. “I’ve finally found you. It took a while. You changed your name.”

Her eyes closed, a flicker of a grimace flashing across her face, as if she was recounting a bad memory or was in pain. He sat up straighter, frowning, wondering if he should get a nurse, when she answered. “Had to. What happened with you, and when they knew of me -- had to. Was safer that way. For you, and for me.”

Her eyes opened, meeting his again, and he stared at her, not showing any signs of the worry etching into his heart at her frail state. Suddenly, her fingers tightened on his. “I’m sorry. Sorry you never got to go home, help your people, met me. So very sorry.” Her eyes began to close and he panicked, reaching and cupping her face.

“I’m not,” he whispered, watching her eyes open and meet his. Confusion flickered there, but he smiled anyways, hoping to ease the endless depths of sadness he saw there. “I heard from them. They’re okay. They made it.. Even my children.”

“So why are you still here?” She murmured, her voice soft, so much so he had to lean forward to hear it.

“Because I can’t leave. The experiments changed me, made it where I can’t go, not anymore. Besides, and leave all this? You? Never.” 

She smiled, seemingly too tired to laugh, but he saw her eyes glaze over and tears form there. “Love you, you know. You scared me, but -- love you.”

“I know,” he responded, then chose that moment to grab his briefcase, set it beside her on the bed. “That’s why I’m here. What if I told you, you could get up and leave that bed, and come with me? Like you were before? It’d mean you’d have to be...like me. More human than I was, when I scared you, but less human than you are now. Would you do that for me, Mary Lou?”

She stared at him so long, he was worried she wouldn’t accept, and he sat down the briefcase, nodding and dipping his head, clenching her hand, despite his heart shattering. He was about to ask if he could stay, until the end, when her hand tightened in his again, making him look up into her aged face.

She smiled, tears sliding down her cheeks, and whispered the best thing he could have ever heard. “Yes.”

 

* * *

He paced outside the home they shared in Malibu, staring at the sea from the large balcony he had furnished with a telescope - in hopes of seeing that star that rotated the new planet his people lived on - and chairs, but it wasn’t matching and clashed, needing Mary Lou’s touch. He liked it here, the climate close enough to remind him of the home they'd shared in New Mexico, yet different enough that he was still fascinated with it, nearly a decade later.

She was inside, resting in the machine he’d placed her in after his initial procedures back where he had finally found her. It had been two weeks - not long for someone ageless like him, yet it had felt like an eternity - and today was the day she should have awakened and joined him. Ever since the horrendous experiments placed on him, he’d been largely left alone, deemed safe to humans, despite his alien nature. He was still smart, even if he didn’t hold the patents he did before, and quickly remade what money he had lost, as if to remind the humans not everything they tried to steal away from him would last. Once more, he was rich and powerful and enigmatic, but unlike before, no one cared this time. He was left blessedly alone and with that came the loneliness, of which he only wanted relieved by one woman - the one healing in the tank inside the house.

Suddenly, he sensed her, turning and staring, watching her step outside, squinting her eyes as she tilted her head back and looked up at the sun. Everything about her was as it was before, outside of a few scars near her wrist, the site of several injections, and the faint shimmer to her skin, a byproduct of melding her skin’s DNA into a hybrid of his people and hers. 

She was beautiful in every way, and the only other person in the universe also like him now. She was his.

“How are you feeling?” He murmured, too afraid to hope. Her eyes were wide as she blinked and looked around, noting the ocean behind him, the large house, his nakedness outside of a red and black Japanese monsuke, her fingers tracing her wrists and stomach and breasts, all carefully hidden under a nude camisole and briefs. He swallowed, his eyes lowering over her body - unable to hide his reaction to her new state. She stilled, sensing the change in him, her swift inhale of breath surprising him. He never expected that from her, even when he changed her, made her his companion, but it pleased him she was no longer afraid of what and who he was, much more human in his responses now than he had been before.

“I’m okay,” she replied, stepping closer to him. She surprised him when she untied his monsuke, brushing the edges of the robe away and off his body, sending it tumbling in a silken hiss to the balcony floor. She stared, reaching out and tracing his body. Like before, his skin began to glisten and sweat with a syrupy substance, but unlike before, his maleness worked - just as most Earth men’s did - his sex hardening in her hand, more of that substance glistening at the tip. Now, he was like any man, except the musk his body continued to produce, pleased she didn’t seem to mind, even looking curious by the shift in her eyes.

“You’re so...different now. Why?” She asked, looking up, studying his face. He swallowed, tried to answer, but only managed a groan when her hands explored again, touching and stroking him. Suddenly, he had to reach out and stop her, agonizingly aroused. It had been so long since anyone had touched him, even himself, that he was embarrassingly close to climax. His sex throbbed in her grip, seconds from spurting, but when he saw the excitement in her eyes, he released her hand, and let her continue her explorations. 

She stilled, then stepped closed, pumping him furiously, and he gripped her shoulders, bowing briefly as his cock - that’s what it was now, no longer like it was before - exploded. He cried out at the sensation, spattering his seed all over her camisole, wetting her already musk-coated skin with his ejaculate, and he stared at the small, berry-colored nipples he remembered touching and kissing decades ago that he could now see through the wet garment. 

“It’s...hard to explain,” he finally managed on a gasp, as she continued to fondle him, as if she remembered his recovery being quick. Already he was growing hard, and reached for her camisole, tugging at the straps, watching as she dropped her grip, quickly shrugging it and the briefs off. He groaned again, staring at her, as she took his hand and led him into a lounge chair, then straddled him, running her fingers through his hair. His cock ached, hard and throbbing just against the edge of her sex, that was hot and slick from where it rested against his thighs. He wanted nothing more than to be inside her, but sensed she was waiting for his answer. “I had to change, to blend in, to survive the experiments. Some damaged my alien form, so I researched DNA splicing and -- this is what I am now.”

“Like me,” she whispered, and he nodded, as she leaned forward. He reached up, cupping her breasts, and she moaned, kissing him. He returned it with fervor, feeling her shift, her nipples beading against his palms in his grip, and then he let out a surprised choke of sound when a tight wet heat enveloped him. She’d straddled and sunk down on him, taking him into her. 

It was the best sensation he’d ever felt in his life - far beyond what it had been when he was with her before, as a fully hidden alien.

As if sensing something by instinct, he gripped her hips, urging her to move. She did, rolling her hips, flexing some inner part of herself that had her squeezing and milking around his hardness, and he gasped, throwing his head back, as his cock jolted inside her, already close.

“ _ Yes _ ,” she whispered, excited, and kept moving - harder, faster, so much he couldn’t stand it. Suddenly, she cried out as he twisted her nipples like she asked, and he felt the most amazing pulsing sensations around his cock, the kind he felt around his fingers from before, but this time so much more intense, he was quickly following her, shouting out her name as he throbbed inside her to a pulsating finish, bathing her insides with his release.

“Will I…?” She asked, trailing off, but he shook his head, tucking her close. He knew what she asked, if they would have children, and he answered quickly. It was one of the experiment’s unexpected results, making them into what they were now - sterility.

“No,” he replied, feeling her nod her head mutely. For some odd reason, he felt sad. “I’m sorry.”

“All I need is you,” she replied, tugging her head up to kiss him again. 

He smiled, somehow oddly at peace, holding her close, feeling her turn and stare out at the ocean. He did the same and together, they watched the waves.


End file.
